House of Bamboo [DVD] [French Version]

Sam Fuller's (THE BIG RED ONE) 1955 crime noir thriller was the first American film made in Japan after WWII, and features stunning photography of a pre-modern Tokyo dominated by images of cherry blossoms and Kabuki theater. Robert Stack (AIRPLANE!, CADDYSHACK II) stars as Eddie Kenner, a US army operative sent to Tokyo to investigate the underhanded dealings of an ex-GI named Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan, THE WILD BUNCH). Dawson has taken up robbing ammunition trains, and is also the kingpin of a local crime racket. Kenner must garner the criminal's trust without letting on his true intentions, and he is aided in his endeavor by Mariko (Shirley Yamaguchi), the wife of a dead American soldier.

"Directed by cult filmmaker Samuel Fuller in his brief big-studio period....[The film] benefits from CinemaScope Tokyo location footage from a time when few Hollywood productions got to shoot there."USA Today